Music & culture at Anvil Arts

Women of Influence: The Pattle Sisters is the subject of a fascinating exhibition running until May 4th

An important album created by the celebrated 19th century artist, Edward Burne-Jones – its whereabouts unknown by art historians for over 100 years – is at the centre of an exhibition at Watts Gallery. 

The Little Holland House Album is a volume of poems and drawings by the young Burne-Jones (1833-1898), recognised as revealing a turning point in the artist’s career.  Created in the summer of 1858 and rediscovered in the 1980s, the album was lovingly presented by Burne-Jones to Sophia Dalrymple (1829-1911), one of the seven Pattle sisters whose lives, legacies and collective influence are explored in the exhibition, Women of Influence: The Pattle Sisters.  

Adeline (1812–1836), Julia (1815–1879) – better known as Julia Margaret Cameron, one of the most important and innovative photographers of the Victorian age –  Sara (1816–1887), Maria or ‘Mia’ (1818–1892), Louisa (1821–1892), Virginia (1827–1910) and youngest sister Sophia were the daughters of James Pattle (1775-1845), a Supreme Court Judge for the East India Company, and Adéline Maria Pattle (née de L’Étang) (1793-1845), who had French-Bengali heritage.  All seven sisters were born in west Bengal, India, educated in France and in 1843 when Sara and her Prinsep family – Sara had married Henry Thoby Prinsep (1793 – 1878) eight years prior – moved from India to London, the other sisters soon followed to Britain.   

In 1851 the Prinsep family settled in Little Holland House in Kensington, where they were joined by a stream of visiting sisters and by George Frederic Watts (1817-1904), who became artist-in-residence.   

Together, the Pattle sisters turned Little Holland House into one of the most vibrant and bohemian cultural spaces in Victorian London attracting a glittering array of elite figures including Dante Gabriel Rosetti;  Alfred, Lord Tennyson; Sir Charles Halle and Charles Darwin who gathered weekly at their Sunday afternoon salons.  

The exhibition, which presents new research, will show how the unconventional salon they created at Little Holland House enabled the Pattle sisters to gain significant influence on 19th century British art, literature and ideas. 

It features paintings, photography, works on paper and personal possessions including rare loans from private collections, 

Women of Influence: The Pattle Sisters will be published by Watts Gallery to accompany the exhibition.   

A programme of related events will run alongside the exhibition.  

Pictures: Watts Gallery Trust 

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